


Força

by facade



Category: Football RPF, Portugal National Team - Fandom
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Portugal NT - Freeform, Solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6407389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facade/pseuds/facade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The important thing is the signal this match gives: the signal is that football is not afraid, the people are not afraid." - Fernando Santos</p>
            </blockquote>





	Força

**Author's Note:**

> The attacks in Brussels and in Iraq really affected my desire to want to write anything football or National Team related. Due to my writing preferences, I would have had to reference one or both of those and I wasn't comfortable with it as such references tend to lead to politics. Fernando Santos had some beautiful words before the match with Belgium though, and Portugal provided a beautiful atmosphere for our visitors; I needed to get my feelings about --everything-- out before I could write anything else and so... The character (CR) isn't even all that relevant as I simply needed someone to ground the work.

Portugal is painted in the black and the yellow, in the red of Belgium stripes and Belgium hearts and yet he’s never felt more at home while standing in the midst of his people. These, these were the Portuguese he’d so often dressed for and he feels himself overwhelmed as he sees them for the first time on the night, finds them standing in solidarity beneath and behind the black and the yellow, the red… overwhelmed as he finds them standing in the midst of a lion - claws and tongue on full display - and yet it isn’t fear in their eyes as they’ve taken the Belgium black on the eve. Tonight, tonight the Portuguese have arisen to find themselves the shield of Belgium and it is only their strength that parts from their lips to resound across this pitch, this city, this country, this earth. Only their strength, only their pride; there is no fear here. This was his Portugal, his Portugal standing united against anything and anyone willing to defy, anyone willing to further disrespect the black and the yellow, the red they raise with their calloused, overworked hands, the red, green, and gold they bleed from their hearts, the blue, black, and white that pours from their battered souls. This, this is his Portugal… ((but he hates that it’s taken such great loss for them to have found themselves)).

((And in the naked light I saw // ten thousand people, maybe more // people talking without speaking // people hearing without listening))

The armband feels heavier against his arm tonight but he drags the weight proudly as he jogs into his position, eyes the ball aware of how much heavier that, too, will be on the night. The sound of the silence envelopes him as he trades visions of the pitch for the faces of this crowd, for the thirty-two faces of the present yet not. They're not yellow, nor blue, nor gold; not Portuguese nor of Belgia... they're merely too young and too in love with this game. His kit feels heavier, his boots as their memory slips within the fabrics of his kit and into the studs of those cleats to keep him grounded and yet he knows he isn’t alone with this weight. There’s twenty-two players who will be dancing in what was once a dream of those thirty-two faces. He isn't alone and they... they are Portugal; they are Belgium; they are Iraq; they are France - they are not afraid.

 

**"The important thing is the signal this match gives: the signal is that football is not afraid, the people are not afraid." - Fernando Santos**

**Author's Note:**

> There are lyrics within the text of this work || [The Sound of Silence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4) by Disturbed (lyrics originally written and performed by Simon and Garfunkel). // Belgium Flag Representation: Black - Shield || Yellow - Lion || Red - Lion's Claws and Tongue


End file.
